Before attending Dave Brat’s Town Hall in Blackstone, VA last night, I thought I knew all I cared to know about Dave Brat. His overconfident, condescending manner, his insistence on drawing attention to his seminary education and his academic career and affiliation with Steve Bannon made me sure he was nothing but pure evil.

What I have decided after attending the Town Hall is that he is worse. He may not be as evil and nefarious and I thought, but he is lazy and uneducated on the things that matter most to his voters. He is failing miserably at representing the 7^th District of Virginia.

I know Dave Brat never expected to beat Senate Majority Leader Eric Cantor back in 2014.  He probably didn’t know he was the test case for Steven Bannon’s plot to take over the government.  He was just as surprised as anyone else to find out just how much Virginia voters hated Eric Cantor. So it’s not entirely unforgivable that when he took office as the Tea Party’e darling, Brat didn’t know much about the official Republican platform and what  the policies were that drive the positions.

What is unforgivable is that nearly three years later, Brat STILL doesn’t know anything about policies.

And that willful ignorance of government policy is what was on display last night.

To be fair, Brat did accept a lot of specific, pointed questions about what he would support and why. But what isn’t fair is that he didn’t answer those questions. He hemmed and hawed, juked and jived, and did anything necessary to avoid giving substantive answers on anything.

On the question of protecting the EPA, he repeated a puzzling answer he’s given before: That the “number one thing you can do to have clean air and clean water is to increase economic growth. It turns out that rich people like clean air and clean water.”

On questions regarding separation of church and state, he reliably fell back into his standard mumbo-jumbo answer of Judeo-Christian ethics, his church at St. Mary’s, James Madison, and somewhere in that rambling answer stated that as Americans we get our rights from God, at which point several protestors corrected him by yelling, “Not God, the Constitution!”  Alarmingly, he doesn’t seem to know the difference between God and our Founding Fathers.

He falsely asserted that Planned Parenthood--and he stressed the Parent-part of the name--doesn’t provide prenatal screenings, when in fact, they often do.

When asked for an example of how he uses ethics to reach out to the other side of the aisle, he laughingly said, “Read my book!”

And when asked if he believed in climate change, he responded that sure he does, the climate changes all the time. What he doesn’t seem to get is that voters are serious. The country faces serious concerns. We understand that not everyone has the same solutions to our problems. But an attempt to grasp the difficulty of the problems we face and to provide coherent, well-thought out answers to questions that come up repeatedly should be the minimal effort he puts into this job of being our representative.

His pattern of spouting off half-formed ideas is alarming in its laziness. To improve his game, I would suggest the professor take the rules of the classroom to heart and actually crack open a book and study.  He should study the policies that are before him and research the consequences of enacting those policies. Look at all the possible ways his constituents and fellow citizens could be impacted—intentionally or unintentionally—by the results of those policies. Remember that in real life, there are a lot of variables, and things won’t go exactly as planned. Don’t ignore those variables because inevitably they will affect the outcome. And I’d suggest he take a few field trips. Visit a few Planned Parenthood centers. Talk to the doctors, nurses and even patients who go there for care. Take a trip to a rural school. Ask how far those kids’ parents would be expected to drive to take their kids to a charter school. Ask if their jobs would allow them the time to do that.  Visit a suburban school. Find out how many kids would be affected if you removed the nutritional guidelines for free and reduced lunches. Visit a special ed classroom. He should ask himself if he truly believes a charter school is equipped to handle all the different needs of those children. And  if their parents are financially able to meet their unique medical needs once he “keeps his promise”  to repeal and replace the ACA with HSAs that most are unable to fund..

He should understand that governing isn’t a multiple-choice quiz. It’s a long, complicated project—one where experiments can often fail, but it’s the responsibility of the people and their representatives to work hard and to stay on task to ensure the best possible outcome for all.

Once he’s done all  his homework , he should put together some real reasons why he is for and against certain legislation. He can’t skip the questions that are too hard, or give an incomplete answer. He has to put real work into answering each and every concern to the best of his ability.

Then, if enough people buy into his answers, he might be able to legitimately start campaigning for the next 12 years, as he said he hopes to. (Although that’s in direct conflict with his original campaign promise to fight for strict term limits.)

But for now, for his lack of effort and understanding of the real lives of the constituents across his 10 county district, Dave Brat deserves an F.

We will be watching to see how much he’s willing to work to improve.

I wrote about my support for legal Marijuana on here before.

But I am more really concerned that the legalization to get high (for fun, or for pain relief, or for getting an appetite during chemo), will result in a conservative backlash against what might be the real miracle. CBD oil.

I have seen personally, first hand, the miracles that this oil brings and I am deeply troubled that old white men are up to their shit again. Bears sleeping with their cubs? Fuck em’. Endangered animals? Fuck em’.

Young, disadvantaged minorities? “Give em’ the ol’ freedom stick”. 

My nephew is one of the disadvantaged. He has severe cerebral palsy from contracting either a virus or getting bacteria in his blood in the first year of his life. Meningitis or Encephalitis being the reason. His brain swelled, he nearly died, and has remained a special needs person for his whole life. He’s aware of his surroundings, but can’t speak, and can’t walk either. His body is somewhat deformed from crawling around his entire life. He is 16.

But now comes the miracle part. He gets seizures. LOTS of seizures. So many that at just 5 years of age the doctors put a cathode on his carotid nerve. His mother basically has to click a button that shocks him in order to break the seizures from “clustering”. And all sorts of pharma (calcium blockers, sodium potassium pump regulators…etc)… all of it had a diminishing set of returns as he continues to get older.

Well, no longer.

You see, I have been doing a lot of research on CBD and its potential. I called and emailled many specialists in this field. I found one that had a true MD background and he prescribed 10 pills of a certain percentage of CDB oil infused into coconut oil. Within 5 days, the seizures are gone. What was once a daily ritual that ranged from using this Vagus nerve shocker deal to taking him to the hospital fearing for his life… Seizures are gone. For 3 months now…. No joke.

CBD oil is not THC.  It doesn’t get you “high” and has many health benefits beyond what my nephew is currently experiencing. It is being researched at Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, and the Mayo Clinic. It’s also being studied in GREAT detail with it effects with autism over in Israel.

But for supporters of legalized weed, it is the best of times and it is the worst of times.  More and more states are removing prohibitions which criminalized ganja for decades.  However, running a ‘legal’ marijuana business is cumbersome as the industry is tightly regulated, access to capital is almost non-existent, and interstate commerce is still deemed illegal by the Feds.

Enter Donald Trump.  On the surface, the orange menace would appear to be sympathetic to legalizing it.  While on the campaign trail in late-2015, now President Trump commented that ‘in terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state.’  

However, marijuana is still considered a banned substance by the Feds and the overall message out of Washington is one of law enforcement, not tolerance.  Add to this the fact that the President is a teetotaler and many members of the incoming cabinet have come out against the legalization of marijuana and hopes for further liberalization may have gone up in smoke.

So where does this leave the industry and its customers?   The most likely answer is on shaky ground.   The President tweeted on February 12 that drug smuggling was one of the reasons for the recent immigration crackdown.  No points for originality, as this is not the first time that the herb has been tied to ‘undesirables’.

Another challenge is the reclassification of marijuana.  Tom Price, the incoming Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was one of the most fervently anti-marijuana members of Congress.  

In fact, he has helped to lead the charge against much of the legislation which would have made it easier for the industry to expand.  During his time in Congress, Secretary Price voted against measures which would have enshrined a state’s authority to legalize marijuana and he worked to halt proposals to limit the Department of Justice’s ability to question such laws.  

Secretary Price’s obstruction is chronic – pun intended.  As a physician, he is part of a community which has consistently come out against legalization despite a group of prominent physicians forming the pro-legalization, Doctors for Cannabis Regulation (DFCR).  

His obstinacy has gone so far as to repeatedly vote against a measure which would have allowed doctors working for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to recommend weed.  Considering the overwhelming evidence of Secretary Price’s record, the HHS might be slow to back further legalization or even studies which might have the potential to conclude the benefits of marijuana.  Such as a follow to a University of Michigan study which found that medical-grade marijuana reduces use of opioid pain meds and decreases risk for some with chronic pain.  

Granted the HHS did overhaul regulations pertaining to marijuana research in 2015, but human studies require preapproval of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which Secretary Price controls.  This is a shame as further research and even FDA approval of marijuana might be the answer to the nation’s seemingly unstoppable opioid crisis.  

However, this highlights one of the many contradictions of the Trump Administration.  While Candidate Trump sounded almost libertarian when it came to marijuana, President Trump has assembled what may well be the most conservative administration in the history of the Republic.

If there is one thing which Conservatives are enamored with, it is the pretext of ‘Law and Order’.  Not the television show, rather the idea that every law, no matter how ill-conceived or out-of-date should be enforced regardless of the circumstances.  

While some observers have concluded that President Trump will be unlikely to fight the advancement of legalized marijuana, they might be setting themselves up for disappointment.  

If the current crackdown on immigration is any indication, this Administration is likely to test the limits of Federal power, even to the point where the Government compels state or local authorities to do its bidding against their own will.  Such an approach could push several cases to the Supreme Court.  

One such case is Feinberg vs. IRS.  In determining that a Colorado-based marijuana business was within their rights not to report marijuana-related revenue to the IRS, then Appellate Court Justice and now Supreme Court Nominee, Neil Gorsuch, ruled the Federal Government sent mixed messages on the legalization.

Ultimately, this might be the one thing which a Trump Administration will remedy.  While the outcome might not be viewed as positive by pro-marijuana advocates, it will redraw the battle lines in the fight to pass the dutchie across state lines.

Trump's newly minted climate-change-denier-in-chief/EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt addressed the troops yesterday, trying to give the appearance of respecting the career staff while offering some sense (but not specifics) on the direction he sees the agency moving — and demonstrating his astonishing lack of awareness about the agency and its mission.

Pruitt's remarks were delivered to a small audience in person, with other staff able to listen in or watch online. He opened with a conciliatory tone, thanking the career staff for their dedication:

Most of the people I met this morning, I think the least amount of years that I heard was 19 years.  That’s quite something.  That says a lot about the mission of the agency and the people that are here.  And I want to commend you for your service to this country and service to this agency and thank you for that.

He used a story from Joseph Ellis’ Founding Brothers (and though he didn’t mention it, enacted in the musical Hamilton) to emphasize his belief in the importance of civility in discourse.  In that spirit, he promised to be a “good listener” and noted that  “you can’t lead unless you listen.”  So far so good.

More revealing was his reference to a second book, Inventing Freedom by Daniel Hannan. The book’s subtitle tells you what you need to know about its author’s viewpoint: “How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World.” (It is probably required reading for team Trump.) Pruitt said he drew some lessons from the book on the importance of the American experiment that he emphasized with EPA staff:

• Process matters.  Pruitt’s view of regulation is that “Regulations ought to make things regular” and “give certainty to those that they regulate.” He notably mentioned making decisions informed by “how it’s going to impact those in the marketplace” — a first hint that he is looking to make the process easier on the regulated community.
• Rule of law.  Pruitt set out a fairly narrow view of the Executive branch role in developing regulations. “The only authority that any agency has, in the Executive Branch, is the authority given to it by Congress.” While he acknowledged that Congress has sometimes deferred significant authority to agencies, he emphasized that often “Congress has been very prescriptive” and that the agency should limit itself accordingly.
• Federalism.  EPA delegates many pollution prevention programs to state health and environment departments, and Pruitt noted the importance of working well with the states: “[It's important that] those at the state level see us as partners in this very important mission we have as an agency and not adversaries.”

Of course, this is all highly insulting to EPA career staff since it seems to imply that they haven't been thoughtful in their process, respectful of the rule of law, and strong partners with state environmental agencies. Little wonder that it wasn’t well-received by staff.  As one EPA staffer who spoke with Mother Jones said: “Talking about the rule of law as if we didn't do EVERYTHING with the realization that it WILL end up in court. It was condescending and hypocritical.”

But reading between the lines, Pruitt is signaling that he wants scaled-back regulations that give significant deference to “the marketplace”; that he plans to take a narrow view of the agency's ability to apply its own expertise in establishing regulations beyond what is defined explicitly in law (and in the case of EPA, much of the actual work of developing appropriate regulations has been delegated to the agency — so this significantly narrows the ability of staff to do their jobs); and that he plans to give deference to states that want weaker protections in their race to the bottom to attract polluting industries (perhaps he’d give the same deference to states wanting stronger protections, but I’m not holding my breath on that one).

In his close, Pruitt indicated the need to “respect economic growth” while still protecting the environment. He borrowed a quote from environmental giant John Muir: “John Muir one time said, everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to pray in and play in.” That quote would have made much more sense for an Interior Department appointee, or the Chief of the Forest Service, where their jobs include management of public lands where some areas are given more protective status to preserve our “places to pray in and play in.”  EPA, though, is charged with protecting our environment writ large, ensuring that the air we breathe and the water we drink — wherever we may be — is safe and healthful. Their job isn’t just protecting the places we play in and pray in, but every place we live, work, and yes, play and pray.  And so perhaps the most notable thing about Pruitt’s remarks are what he didn't say:  not a single word about public health. That omission shows just how out of touch the new Administrator is with the agency mission he inherits.
 

Pruitt made his remarks in the Rachel Carson Green Room.  Perhaps instead of quoting Muir, he might have thought about Carson’s words:

The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world — the very nature of its life.

Pruitt didn’t launch a frontal attack in his opening statement to EPA staff — but the early signs are not good.  You can read the full transcript of his remarks here.

Here is the long overdue second part of my Sri Lanka bucket. I think we could all do with some sunshine and tranquility.

January 2017, Southern Province, Sri Lanka

One morning I decided to check out Koggala lake which is about 20 minutes by tuktuk (three wheeled vehicle) from where I was staying in Sri Lanka’s Southern Province. It is the island’s largest natural lake and is dotted with small islands, fringed with mangroves and teems with prawns. Supposedly there are marsh crocodiles inhabiting the waters, but if so, they remained out of sight. I did see scores of luminous, tentacled jellyfish in certain areas, but they were impossible to photograph from the boat. 

The first bird I saw was this grey heron (Ardea cinerea cinerea), it took me a second or two to notice the little cormorant (Phalacrocorax niger) perched by his side.

When visible, as they are in the photograph below, the yellow feet make identifying the little egret (Egretta garzetta garzetta) very easy.

Sri Lanka has four resident species of egret, the great egret (Egretta alba), the intermediate egret (Egretta intermedia intermedia), the little egret and the cattle egret (Bubulcus coromandus). The Intermediate egret has black feet and is larger than the little, but if the bird is alone, size is sometimes hard to determine and if the egret is wading, the color of the feet can’t be seen. The little egret has a long, pencil thin, black bill, while the Intermediate has a heavier bill which is yellow except during breeding season when it turns black.

The cattle egret’s breeding plumage is a golden-buff on head, neck, face and breast, but the rest of the time he’s pure white, with black legs and a yellow bill. I found it easy to identify the cattle egret based on his choice of companion, but the species also has a shorter neck, stockier build and puffier throat than any of the other species on the island and although it’s not visible in the photograph, their bill hooks down slightly at the tip.

A couple of times when I was swimming in what I call the “pool” namely the area that is almost encircled by rocks, an egret would fly over, swoop down and capture some tasty morsel or another, a behavior called plunging. It obviously wasn’t a cattle egret as fish are not part of their diet. From Heron conservation on the little egret:

Over deeper water it can feed by flying –  Dipping, Foot Dragging, Jumping, and Hopping from one spot to another (Hirschfeld 1991).

I managed to get a photograph of the bird in the next image by pure happenstance. I was aiming for a long distance shot of the tree canopy and I only noticed this kite perched atop a very tall tree after I had uploaded and enlarged the image. As I had to severely crop the photograph, the image it not very clear, but it’s definitely a brahminy kite (Haliastur indus) which is a member of the family Accipitridae. Primarily a resident of the lowlands, the Brahminy kite inhabits coastal plains, estuaries, rivers, lakes, swamps, marshes, reservoirs, rice fields. It  feeds on both dead and live prey.

My guess is that these are terns of which SL has quite a few varieties.

I’m pretty confident that this is a black-winged stilt, but I can’t for the life of me figure out where he has hidden his other leg.

We stopped at one of the islands to visit a Buddhist monastery and temple and while we were walking up the stone steps we heard the unmistakeable whoops of a monkey. I was thrilled because I had yet to see a single primate. A troop of macaques troop through my sister’s garden on a frequent basis, but they had been absent for some weeks. I kept looking up at the canopy hoping for a glimpse, but while I kept hearing the calls, I couldn’t pinpoint their origin. My friend, said that he could distinguish quite a few individuals. Finally he pointed me in the right direction and I saw this magnificent purple-faced langur (Trachypithecus vetulus) which is also known as the purple-faced leaf monkey.

This is a long tailed, arboreal species that is endemic to the closed canopy forests of Sri Lanka. There are four subspecies of the purple-faced langur and they all appear on the IUCD red list. There has been massive deforestation in Sri Lanka so what little closed canopy forest remains is often in isolated pockets. 

The subspecies I saw is the southern purple-faced langur (T. vetulus vetulus). They are supposed to be exceedingly shy, but once the rest of the group had been warned, this male was happy to loll about. Sometimes he watched us and at other times he paid no attention at all. 

The glory lily or flame lily (Gloriosa superba) is a vine native to Asia and parts of Africa. While beautiful, it is highly toxic, indeed every part of the plant is poisonous. Reminds me of those brightly colored reptiles and amphibians whose intensity of hue warns potential predators of their toxicity.

The lovely tree below grows in my sister’s garden. It is a crepe/crape jasmine (Tabernaemontana divaricata) which is a member of the oleander family and is not a “true” jasmine. Like many members of the oleander family, it’s leaves release a milky sap when broken.

The cropped version of the photo shows the pretty five-petaled pinwheel blossoms that grow in clusters. These flowers are highly prized in Sri Lanka and are frequently used as offerings at shrines.

The crown flower (Calotropis gigantea) is also known as the giant milkweed and is native to much of Asia and tropical Africa. It’s a large evergreen shrub with clusters of waxy flowers. To get an idea of it’s size you can refer to the photo of the cattle egret and the cow from last week’s bucket as they are completely dwarfed by it. This plant seems to be quite common in the Southern province, especially in disturbed areas. That butterflies are attracted to it comes as no surprise considering that giant milkweed is it’s other name and like other milkweeds, the crown flower is poisonous.

I saw quite a few butterflies during my visit, but this was the only viable, if fuzzy shot that I managed to get. IRL it was a lovely blue and based on the color and markings I’m tentatively identifying it as a blue tiger (Tirumala limniace). I know that many of our readers are pretty knowledgeable in this area, so please feel free to correct me

The wonderful trees in the photograph below are everywhere on the beaches of the Southern province and many have vivid orange fruits hanging from them. The trees are a variety of Pandanus which is commonly known as the screw pine or Umbrella tree. There are hundreds of varieties of Pandanus in Asia, Oceania and the Pacific islands including Hawaii and many are strikingly similar. I spent a lot of time researching this species and it’s numerous varieties until I finally gave up in frustration. For anyone interested in the various varieties, their descriptions and their many and varied uses Plantnet-project.org gives a comprehensive overview.

Some varieties of Pandanus have edible fruit and some do not, but the one pictured below looks luscious.

The jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus), is a member of the fig and mulberry family. Not only is the fruit the largest tree-borne variety, but a single tree can produce 100-200 of them a year, making them a potentially valuable resource in the fight against famine. 

In Sri Lanka both ripe and unripe Jackfruit is used for culinary purposes. When unripe the fruit is used in curries and other savory dishes. Ripe Jackfruit is far sweeter and is used to flavor desserts or to eat alone. It can also be seeded, fried and made into chips

The wood of the jackfruit tree is important in Sri Lanka and is exported to Europe; it is termite-proof and is superior to teak for building furniture.[10]

I can’t end this bucket without mentioning the king coconut (Cocos nucifera var. aurantiaca) which is indigenous to Sri Lanka. Unlike green cocoanuts, this lovely golden variety has very little meat, but plenty of the delicious water or “milk” for which it is famed. 

I’m going back to Sri Lanka towards the end of March and plan to stay there for three months. It will be very different this time, as neither my family nor my friends are going to be there, so I am a little out of my comfort zone. Still, I plan to see a lot more of the island and it’s astonishing biodiversity. I am also going to volunteer with an organization called WeCare which provides desperately needed veterinary services for the enormous population of Sri Lankan street dogs. I saw some terrible suffering during my visit and had planned to see if I could find a spaying and neutering program that needed help and then on my last day I heard about this group of British vets who had started this amazing program. It’s obviously meant to be.

Thanks as always for reading.

Now It's Your Turn

What have you noted happening in your area or travels? As usual post your observations as well as their general location in the comments.    

Thank you.  

Every morning I wake up with a gut-wrenching, sick feeling in my stomach.  It isn’t the flu, or the day-old Chinese food I ate the night before, or even the sense of dread for the fast-approaching tax day and the check I’ll be balling up in a fist before I send it off.  I’m not thinking about how in the heck I’m going to pay for a new set of tires for the car, the serious drainage problem in my backyard, and it isn’t even the feeling of déjà vu at the prospect of yet another day in the office where I’m overworked and undervalued because I’m just so darn grateful to even have a job that pays for a house with a drainage-challenged backyard in the first place.  Most importantly, it isn’t even the cancer that’s both a mental and physical challenge to the most precious thing in the world to me - my mother.

No, each morning I wake up to this alternate reality we are all living in and wonder if today’s the day that the Medicare my mother relies on will be weakened or taken away.  Many will say that’s months or years off, that it probably won’t affect those already on Medicare, or perhaps it won’t be touched at all…but are you sure about that?  Are you willing to bet your mothers life on that?  I’m not.

And it certainly isn’t all about me, or her; though she asks me every day if there’s anything so egregious that could happen that might give rise to any semblance of conscience in Republicans.  How much more power will be seized by thugs in my state of North Carolina?  How much more oil will spill, and how many more man-made earthquakes will there be?  Will the Oroville Dam break in California today and displace hundreds of thousands?  Will North Korea test another missile, and will Iran escalate hostilities and draw these sociopaths into war?  Will any of my coworkers be hauled off to detention, separated from their families and cruelly deported?  Will any more children suffer the harsh elements as they flee this country in fear to cross the border into Canada?  Is today the day that millions will lose their healthcare while Congress prepares to spend billions of our tax dollars on a ridiculous wall?   Oh, I’m sorry…a ridiculous fence?

I wake up every morning and I don’t recognize this place anymore.  I don’t recognize some of my coworkers who gather in the break room during lunch to watch Fox News and cheer every time someone says “Fake News” to factual stories, and who seem to believe that willful ignorance is some kind of badge of honor.  I don’t recognize some distant family members in Alabama whose reason for dismissing Russian interference in our election is because they can’t see Russia from their house, and so therefore it can’t possibly be real.  I don’t recognize some family friends who think that deploying the National Guard as a deportation force doesn’t seem like such a bad idea and that we should all just give Agent Orange a chance.  And for all this and more I resent that the precious time my mother has left in this world is spent desperately worrying about the future of her grandchildren and whether or not the country and democracy will survive these dangerous times.

Like many here I’ve been heartened by the flurry of activity around the country through marches, spontaneous protests, and the swarming of political offices everywhere to make our voices heard.  The ACLU certainly has their work cut out for them, but the sharp rise in donations eases my worries that they’ll be overwhelmed.  The bystander training, the Indivisible groups, and the outpouring of solidarity with Muslims and immigrants across the country makes me know that I am not alone.  I am comforted that the majority still believe in democracy, and that whatever happens to the least of us, happens to all of us. 

The prose of John Donne in “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions” feels so relevant today even though it dates back to 1623:

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.  And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

But now we have Republican elected officials who are hiding from us.  Too afraid to pick up the phone, read their mail or hold a town hall and face the music for their inexcusable willingness to accept voter suppression, intolerance, ignorance, blatant greed, hateful rhetoric, major conflicts of interest, outright lying, foreign collusion and authoritarianism.  Too ignorant to listen to reason, and too gutless to own up to the fact that they have and continue to betray the promise of America.  They are complicit, and they are not worthy of the offices they hold.  None of them.

I am not and never have been an “activist”, and no one is paying me to care about my country.  I desperately want to preserve our democracy and return sanity to government.  I want them to hear my voice, and all those like me every.single.day.  I want their ears to burn with the sound of our dissent, and I want them to continue feeling the strength and resolve of our resistance.  I want them to know that this is not just a short-term outcry, but a movement for democracy by the masses.  And so I have an idea that everyone, wherever they are can participate in…

30 @ 5:30 — Bell Toll for Republicans

I propose that for 30 seconds every day at 5:30PM Eastern, we all let them know for whom the bell tolls.  Honk your horn if you’re in your car, ring a bell out the window if you’re at home, set your cell phone alarm if you’re at your office desk, or squeeze the handle on that air horn if you’re at an event.  They will hear us and feel our determination.  We will hear each other and know we’re not alone.  We will be their daily reminder that democracy will not go quietly.

Tomorrow I will be in evening traffic on my way home from work, but at 5:30PM I am prepared to reach out and connect with my fellow Americans by honking my horn for 30 seconds.  What do you think?

    Over the last eight years, America has sent teams over to wrestle in Iran, and they have been met with the loudest cheers, especially for Olympic Gold Medalist and World Champion Jordan Burroughs (pictured below) of the University of Nebraska (and New Jersey before that). They appreciate excellence and want to be fans of our wrestling stars. We had been having, with no fanfare, the wrestling equivalent of the Chinese-American Ping-Pong diplomacy of the early 1970s. 

     I believe that this “Wrestling Diplomacy,” which has seen our teams compete in Iran, and Iranian teams compete in California and even in the middle of New York traffic ...

… helped to forge the ties that made the Iranian Nuclear Deal possible. Recently, the Iranians have allowed their women to join into the sport of wrestling. Everything is going along swimmingly until November of last year. It gets worse in January, when Trump signs an Executive Order banning foreign immigrants from seven countries, including Iran. 

     At immediate issue—besides nuclear bombs and rising international tensions—was the Wrestling World Cup scheduled for February 16-17 in Kermanshah, Iran. 

     The Iranian Foreign Minister reacted by threatening the visas of the American wrestling team. But American democracy (through the court system) and sanity prevailed. After courts held the Trump ban to be unconstitutional, the Iranian Foreign Minister rescinded his ban. The World Cup was on! 

     And what a Cup it was. 

     Iranians go crazy about wrestling. It is their national sport. They are also a wrestling super power. At this recent World Cup, the rumor was that the building that housed the spectacle had twice the number of fans in attendance than are usually allowed. 

     After two days of pool competition, it was clear that Iran and the United States would meet in the final. We were undefeated in our pool, having beaten the Russians and Azerbaijanis. The Iranians had beaten the Mongolians and the Indians. The video above gives you an idea of the energy of Iranian wrestling fans.

     That video shows the final showdown between the United States and Iran. It started out lopsided, with the Iranians coming out strong. Jordan Burroughs, our Olympic Champion, finally gave us some momentum with a win. Then, their Olympic Champion, Yazdani, was pinned by a young American (that’s the picture at the top of the post). In the end, it came down to the heavyweights, and the Iranian heavy, Ghasemi, proved too strong.

     At the premier forum for wrestling in the United States, you can find these threads: Congratulations to Iran and The Best Fans in Wrestling. I am so proud of our wrestling team, our wrestling fans, their wrestling team, and their wrestling fans.

     And I’m so sick of Trump. 

In the summer of 1991, I participated in a triathlon at the Prairie Rose Games in Minot, North Dakota. At the time, I was a young teenage girl who was not an athlete, but who kept trying anyhow. Part way through the difficult and punishing race, as I wondered why I was doing what I was doing and if it was worth finishing, I saw you running along and felt a young person’s thrill at recognizing a public figure in an unofficial setting.  You obviously were not an athlete either, which became even more obvious when a short time later I saw you being physically ill on the side of the road.  It was what I felt like doing at the time, though the slight athletic prowess given me by my youth spared me that indignity.  Quitting was still foremost in my mind however, until I saw you return to the course.  You were obviously even more miserable than I was, but you were even more determined.  I felt solidarity and was inspired by you.  I finished the race and I still have the medal.

Not long after, I left North Dakota because of love and education and now have work and family ties that keep me away.  I still consider myself a North Dakotan however.  It is the first place out of my mouth when people ask where I am from.  It is the clarifier I use when explaining my viewpoints and it shapes how I see the world.  My family still owns the land my grandparents settled on at the turn of the last century, mainly because I cannot bear to no longer have tangible ties to the state which shaped me.  I follow the news and keep current about events and politics within the state, which has included following your career and public life.  I watched when you became the Attorney General, when you ran for governor and battled breast cancer, and I cheered when it was announced that you were in remission and when you won your senate seat.

Then, along with many democrats within North Dakota, as well as across the nation, I was stunned when you voted against expanding background checks on gun purchasers. I both grew up with a grandfather who lived and breathed hunting, and am married to a man whose colleagues lost family members at Sandy Hook. I knew people growing up and know people now who rely on guns to help supplement their dinner table and for whom hunting is a way of life. I also volunteer on an ambulance and work with patients who should not own a gun.  That Republican grandfather who lived and breathed hunting, also served as the Chief of Police in Bismarck for many years.  He too believed that there were people who had no business owning a gun.  I think you do too.  You cited your experience with law enforcement when explaining your vote, but if you look at statistics that doesn’t make sense.  The thing that makes sense is that you narrowly won your seat, in addition to the fact that you received more calls against the bill than for it from your constituents.

I wanted to write to you back then. I should have, but I didn’t. Many others were calling you out at the time and adding my voice seemed fruitless. This time however, I am writing.  I do not know if you will ever see this, but I hope that you do and I hope I can remind you of the woman I saw getting back in a race that she could only finish but never win. The woman who staved off death, and the candidate who prided herself in sitting down and having the long conversations with voters.

Last week I watched you vote for Scott Pruitt to head the E.P.A. This is a man who wants to eliminate the very agency you voted for him to run.  The same agency that you cut your teeth in as a young attorney. Again, you made a political choice because it might allow you to retain your seat, even though you know that it is a deal with the devil. I remember when I was a kid (and I am sure that you must remember this too), when people would ask about why anybody would choose to live in North Dakota and residents would proudly proclaim that it is “cleaner and greener in the summer and whiter and brighter in the winter.” Part of your job is to work to ensure it stays that way.

Sandy Hook happened and you know it.  Many of the people pushing you to vote against gun control didn’t.  Climate change is real and you know it. Again, many of the people who championed Pruitt don’t.  Part of your job is to tell them. You are an incredibly trusted politician in North Dakota, who is known for listening to her constituents, but you can’t just listen, you also need to have the tough conversations. Take it back to the people, hold the necessary town halls and tell them what you know and what you believe and why. Try to remember back to when you were a public servant, not a politician.  Sometimes serving the public means explaining things to them that you know because of your position and the fact that it is your job to do the necessary research, but that they don’t know because it is beyond the scope of their personal experience or expertise.  This is part of the reason we have public officials. Or it is supposed to be. If you don’t stand up for what you know to be right, because you feel that might lose the position you hold, and that this is too important to risk, then you don’t stand for anything and your position is worth nothing.  You then are merely drinking the same poisonous Kool-Aid that seems to be killing the values of so many in the democratic party, as they keep flailing around in search of a nebulous middle ground, that in the meantime, keeps sliding further and further to the right.

Twenty-five years ago and change, I saw you puking in the bushes on the side of the road and then I saw you pull yourself back together and push on.  Running that race wasn’t about winning, it was about persisting because you knew it was the better choice and the best course of action. Years later, I watched you battle death and manage to push it back down the road. The woman I remember had measurable qualities of integrity and a spine of steel. The North Dakotans that I know and remember have long considered both to be virtues.  I have not seen that same woman or those qualities in freshman Senator Heitkamp.  I hope you can find her, because you are better than this and you are stronger than this and your state and your country need you.

$54 billion is a lot of money. No matter how it is raised, it’s a lot. Local governments would pale at being asked to raise that much money, but that’s what Sound Transit 3 (or ST3 for short) did last fall. Spanning three counties and 16 cities, the plan will bring 116 miles of light rail to the Puget Sound area over the next 30 years.

So why should a reader at the Dailykos care about this? As we move further into the Trump years, many local governments are taking the initiative and passing progressive legislation. Sanctuary laws, non-discrimination ordinances, and many others are all worthy causes. Popular Initiatives, or referendums, are also used to legalize marijuana, raise the minimum wage, attempt to establish universal healthcare, and many other worthy causes. But too many times, in the heat of passing progressive proposals, do we ignore the less ‘sexy’ items. Mass transportation being one of them.  

While mass transportation is a progressive goal for many reasons (Environmentally more friendly, easily accessed by the poor, improves congestion if planned correctly), the methods by which the money raised for such an effort is not. 

Sound Transit is a inter-county transportation board that is responsible for mass transit efforts in three counties in Washington State; King, Pierce, and Snohomish. Its appointed Board of Directors is composed of ten members for King County, three members for Snohomish, four for Pierce, and the State Transportation Department Secretary. 

Now, ST3 was and is an ambitious proposal with a hefty price tag; $54 billion. How was the money raised? Property taxes and a hike in price of the tags necessary to drive a vehicle in Washington State. Now most progressives will read that and go, “What’s the problem?” 

The problem is that the proposal delivered results for the richer parts of the Puget Sound but stiffed the poorer regions, all while keeping the taxes the same. The result: One line for Pierce that will come in 2032 or thereabouts. 

The tax remains the same. 

“An annual tax of 0.8% of the assessed value of autos, 0.5% on taxable purchases, and 0.025% of the assessed value of real estate. The last amounts to $100 a year on a $400,000 house.”

-credit Martin H. Duke 

This is problematic because taxes hit property owners in low income areas the hardest. While $100 a year doesn’t seem that much with the gigantic rise in property values in the Seattle area, it is a lot for the less well off in the surrounding areas. 

For example, in Pierce County a house with a value of $215,000 will have a local property tax now of $2,660. That’s roughly $221 dollars a month. This may seem problematic. Many property owners are wealthy and I’d argue in places like Seattle or San Francisco they can take the hit. But in the places taking in people who have been priced out of those cities it can be the difference between purchasing a home or staying as a renter. The auto tax is even more impacting on lower income households in the surrounding counties as they won’t see light rail until 2030 or later. 

Maybe the benefit outweighs the harm. Mass transit is a worthy goal that would help not just people in Washington State, but other parts of the country as well. Progressive goals should be championed, but we should also look at the price tag and who it collects against. Increases in property taxes, auto tags, and sales tax can be useful, but serve as a detriment to progressive goals when they harm the less fortunate. 

What is clear, is that ST3 passed and the money will be raised. Hopefully, the benefits of mass transportation will be a boon in the region. But at least for me, the way it happened seemed to be a regressive tax that will hurt lower income families and drivers in areas without mass transportation. 

On the second page of today’s Houston Chronicle there is an article by Chronicle business columnist Chris Tomlinson from his Outside The Boardroom series entitled “Bad Behavior by CEO can be costly to shareholders”. This article is about how scandal-plagued CEOs can affect the value of a company, and uses as an example Paul Kruse, who retired this past Saturday as CEO of Blue Bell Creameries, and was its CEO during its highly publicized scandal involving extensive listeria contamination at several of its ice cream plants, especially its main plant at its headquarters in Brenham, Texas. Although this article is ostensibly about how the character of a CEO can affect a company’s bottom line, there seems to be the ghostly presence of Donald Trump haunting the entire article as well.

The full article can be read here: Bad CEO behavior can cost shareholders. It’s free on the Chronicle all this week, after which it will go back behind the Chron’s paywall on March 1. The entire article is quite interesting, but here are a few selected paragraphs:

The most interesting revelation is that family-managed firms are far more likely to experience a CEO scandal. These companies are apparently less likely to enforce strict discipline because office relationships are not strictly transactional.
…
A lack of discipline was what led to a listeria outbreak at family-owned Blue Bell Creameries in 2015 that allegedly caused three deaths.
Documents revealed that CEO Paul Kruse and his managers repeatedly ignored warnings that their plants had listeria, and managers failed to follow hygiene procedures.
If Blue Bell were a public company, Kruse would have lost his job when the scandal broke. But he remained on the job until he announced Saturday that he is retiring as president and CEO and will step down as chairman of the board.

But it’s the ending of Tomlinson’s column that is the most enlightening:

Everywhere you look, people talk about the importance of leadership.
But a necessary ingredient of great leadership is a strong character, because people will only follow those whom they trust. Trust is earned with integrity and loyalty, which is often reflected in a CEO’s personal behavior.

And then the final kicker:

Too many people, though, confuse charisma for character. Just because someone can attract others to them, that doesn’t make them good leaders. Sometimes it’s just narcissism, which explains why some of the flashiest CEOs flame out in personal scandals.
The bottom line is that charisma, experience, and skill are all important, but they are worth nothing unless the leader has good character. And if they don’t, it can cost the whole enterprise.

So even though Chris Tomlinson’s article is technically about Paul Kruse and the problems caused by CEO-led scandals, it also has he-who-shall-not-be-named running all through it, especially at the end (after all if you’re a business writer, you don’t want to anger your business readers/customers). I loved how Tomlinson chose “enterprise” as his last word, which can be interpreted in multiple ways—family business, corporation, country, world. So Tomlinson is trying to say something which he can’t come right out and directly say. But I think any semi-intelligent and well-read person would get the allusion.

But then passing through to the other side of the looking glass, there is this very business-friendly article on the front page of today’s Houston Chronicle’s Business section as well by business writer Mark Collette: “Blue Bell gets a new leader”. Sorry, this one is behind the Chronicle’s paywall, so I’ll give you its gist, if you can't already guess it.

Paul Kruse, who led Blue Bell Creameries through enormous growth, navigated it through a food safety crisis in 2015 and led the company through an ambitious return to market, is retiring. His replacement will be the first person from outside the Kruse family to lead the company in nearly a century.

Then a lot of glowing commentary about how wonderful Paul Kruse was and his rise from working on the assembly line to purchasing packing materials to replacing his father in 2004 as president and CEO, how he greatly expanded sales of Blue Bell Ice Cream, etc, etc, etc. And then came this bit of alternative journalism which I just love:

Under Kruse’s leadership, however — and with the help of a $125 million dollar bailout from oil tycoon Sid Bass — Blue Bell worked with private consultants, labs and government regulators to completely retool its equipment and its safety procedures.

To which I muttered, sotto voce, “As if he had a choice.” And of course the article contained this unsurprising comment:

A company spokesman denied a request to interview Kruse or the new leadership team.

So two different articles about Paul Kruse, retiring CEO of Bell Blue Creameries, on the very same day in the very same paper. And both completely different—different in tone, perspective, and information. Looks like one guy took the red pill, and the other guy took the blue pill. So I’ll leave it up to you to choose which you think is the more authentic. I’ve made my choice, and it’s the one with all the hidden Trump allusions in it as well. Good article Chris Tomlinson. For a business writer you can write with a subtlety I admire.